


Love by Numbers

by wesleysgirl



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 09:10:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesleysgirl/pseuds/wesleysgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For Magpie.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Love by Numbers

**Author's Note:**

> For Magpie.

  
On the first day, Ethan's so twitchy that he's completely unable to relax. Stupid things slip from his mouth, words that he regrets instantly but can't take back, just like the past.

Luckily for him, Rupert seems happy to let them go by without comment.

On the fifteenth day Ethan begins to relax, just the tiniest bit. It's so subtle that he wouldn't have noticed but for the simple fact that it feels like he can breathe again.

One afternoon, Ethan realizes that he _has_ relaxed. He looks at the calendar and sees that there have been forty three days of waking next to Rupert, and forty three nights of falling asleep in his arms.

On the 92nd day, Rupe makes some casual comment about having plans with people Ethan doesn't know, and the bolt of insecurity that shoots straight through his heart so terrifies him that he leaves the flat without a word. He walks fifteen blocks with his pulse pounding in his ears, then turns into the first pub he sees and gets completely pissed on expensive whisky. It takes Rupert four and a half hours to find him, and by the time he does, Ethan's never been so grateful to see anyone in his life.

Unfortunately, gratitude is something he wears particularly poorly, and what he says is, "Sorry to have fucked up your life, Ripper."

"You haven't fucked it up," Rupert says, eyes and voice gentle in ways that make Ethan ashamed of himself. "Come home."

Ethan does. It's not as if there's anywhere else for him. Rupert might as well be oxygen, and he can't live without him, not anymore.

On the two hundred and twelfth day Ethan suggests casually, as if it's completely common instead of entirely unprecedented, that he'll make dinner that evening. Rupert just glances at him over the top of his glasses in that way he has, the way that makes Ethan want to stand up straighter, and at the same time reassures him that he can slouch as much as he cares to.

The three hundred and sixty fifth day finds them curled up on the sofa. There's a wool blanket wrapped around Ethan's shoulders -- at one time he generated so much body heat that it was as if he was burning from within, and perhaps he was, but these days he's sometimes cold. Rupert's arm is around his waist, and he can feel the gentle rise and fall of Rupert's breathing.

There's another year's worth of days ahead.

Ethan knows where he's going to spend them.

 


End file.
